Second Nationwide Roundup of Illegal Uploaders in Japan

by dtshyk
Jan 14, 2011 6:04 AM | 72 Comments

According to The Association of Copyright for Computer Software, 23 Prefectural Police Departments have conducted a wholesale arrest of internet users who uploaded illegal materials via P2P software Share. They have searched 50 places from January 11th - 14th and arrested 18 people. This was the second nationwide roundup of illegal uploaders. 11 people were arrested last November and all of them have already been sentenced guilty.

List of the arrests related to anime and manga:

Source: ACCS Japan

20 of 72 Comments Recent Comments

why are all of them male?

Jan 18, 2011 3:10 AM by blue-y

i guess they skip the class about what a proxy is

Jan 17, 2011 6:11 PM by GrumpyFelo

Tyler_t4 said:
Nationwide roundup?... They only got 18 people. GG japan

Perhaps only few don't abide by copyright laws in Japan, or may be most uploaders use some sort of cyber ninjutsu to evade being caught. :)

Jan 16, 2011 8:50 PM by ForsakenArcher

Nationwide roundup?... They only got 18 people. GG japan

Jan 16, 2011 8:30 PM by Tyler_t4

Monad said:

911119 said:
LOL @ the guy who is 48 and sharing Negima, seems like he likes seeing young girls stripped :D :D :D

Who doesn't like young girls stripped? The guy is 48 not without balls.

LOL, very true...

Also, REALLY JAPAN???

You have nothing better to do than arrest people for idiotic crimes such as these...

Thank god there's so much violence in the U.S, if there wasn't I think we would have daily arrest of people uploading tons of anime and manga.

Jan 16, 2011 3:34 PM by --ALEX--

It's not illegal to download in my country, you can upload to share but you can't sell it. So as long as you're not making a profit you're good to go. Poor guys in Japan, have to learn to be sneakier...

Jan 16, 2011 12:19 PM by uniquelyme91

911119 said:
LOL @ the guy who is 48 and sharing Negima, seems like he likes seeing young girls stripped :D :D :D

Who doesn't like young girls stripped? The guy is 48 not without balls.

Jan 16, 2011 10:13 AM by Monad

lewiszim said:
What was their sentence?

"Gotta upload 'em all" I guess.

Oh wait. lol

Jan 16, 2011 4:28 AM by entropy13

What was their sentence?

Jan 16, 2011 2:02 AM by lewiszim

It's waste of time going after illegal uploaders. You definitely can't catch 'em all..

Jan 16, 2011 1:12 AM by AlexSadist-sama

just for reference, here's the arrests made last year...

dtshyk said:
According to NHK, Japanese Police conducted a wholesale arrest of the internet users who uploaded illegal files through a software called "Share". Ten people ranging from 23 to 57 years old were arrested and one is under investigation the last one was arrested (Dec 1st) by Kyoto Police. There is no interaction among them and the police charged the eleven individually. This is the first time Japanese Police made a nationwide act against the illegal file sharing.

List of the anime-related suspects:
57 year old jobless man, arrested for sharing "Hikaru no Go"
44 year old system engineer, arrested for sharing movies and anime (unspecified)
40 year old jobless man, arrested for sharing "Dragon Ball Kai"
37 year old prefectural employee, arrested for sharing "Mobile Suit Gundam 00"
30 year old arcade clerk, arrested for TV anime (unspecified)
23 year old postal clerk, arrested for sharing "Lucky ☆ Star"
23 year old jobless man, arrested for sharing "Ranma ½" and Dragon Quest 9

Sources: NHK, CTV, Chunichi, Sankei, TBS

oh look, there's a 57-year old man uploading anime.. definitely not your typical otaku..

Jan 16, 2011 1:08 AM by agent535

They arrested a woman (42 years old, unemployed) last fall for uploading Mitsudomoe via Perfect Dark, although that's the only case I've heard of so far.

As for the nationwide roundup, I don't think they're necessarily interested in making a large number of arrests (which would clog up courts and prisons). The idea is that if they do these small busts every so often, people might become scared to upload anime, thus limiting the problem.

Jan 15, 2011 10:11 PM by TJR

TreF said:
I like the 43-year old guy who shared Kuroshitsuji.

same here then again Alois was a slamming hot shota so well you can't blame him really.

Jan 15, 2011 8:19 PM by Roloko

25 years old and over
male

thats the only thing common

Jan 15, 2011 7:56 PM by guruguru19

holypoop said:
Of course, men are the only ones stupid enough to get caught.

Lmao.. I did notice that, too.

Seriously though, only 18? They do a freaking nationwide roundup and come up with 18. You'd think they would want to keep this out of the news. :P

Jan 15, 2011 3:49 PM by Iilia

DistantAvalon said:
do they usually arrest downloaders too?

Downloading is technically illegal, but nowadays when ever something that shouldn't be is up, there are thousands of downloaders and the way that they see it is going after the consumer/downloader/off-spring doesn't help save the companies that are losing money. If they go after the source then if there aren't any uploads, there can't be downloads.

Think of it like if there were no raws available, fansubbers wuoldn't be able to sub series at all.

Jan 15, 2011 2:18 PM by Tyranid5

DistantAvalon said:
do they usually arrest downloaders too?

No. Their strategy is to attack the uploader and cut the supply line since it's too expensive and complicated to hunt down every single downloader out there. That doesn't mean downloading is risk free, but it's usually the uploader that's the main target.

Jan 15, 2011 1:33 PM by Edomae_Group

There are only men on the list? O_O Pfff. Don't tell me the policemen were unwilling to arrest the ladies >8D

TreF said:
I like the 43-year old guy who shared Kuroshitsuji.

Haha, me, too XD

Jan 15, 2011 12:52 PM by Face_Faith

Wow big fail on the police part... apparently they can't wrap their minds around the fact that this ain't ever going to stop

Jan 15, 2011 12:33 PM by Ocean_Horizon

18 caught 10000+++ still uploading.

Jan 15, 2011 11:53 AM by JiakBaKaEng

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